Hygiene

Did people in the Middle Ages take baths? 

Personal hygiene did exist in the Middle Ages – people were well aware that cleaning their face and hands – health manuals from the period note that it was important to get rid of dirt and grime. They also explained that it was important to keep the entire body clean.
German bath etchings from the fifteenth century often feature the town bathhouse, with a long row of bathing couples eating a meal naked in bathtubs, often several to a tub, with other couples seen smiling in beds in the mid-distance.”

http://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/13/did-people-in-the-middle-ages-take-baths/

Irrational Nonargumentation

Feminism vs. Truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqyrflOQFc&feature=youtube_gdata

College’s husky dog logo promotes rape, says student 

In an open letter to UC President Susan Herbst, self-described feminist student Carolyn Luby wrote that the redesigned team logo will intimidate women and empower rape culture.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/26/colleges-husky-dog-logo-promotes-rape-says-student/#ixzz2RhDbhOD8

Indoctrination

Dutch study finds discussing sensitive ethnic concerns can be counter-productive 

Children who are given anti-racism lessons in school are more likely to be intolerant outside the classroom, a major study found yesterday.
It said accusing white pupils of racism causes animosity, and discussing sensitive ethnic concerns such as honour killings paints minority group children in a bad light.
The survey said children who live in mixed neighbourhoods are often free of hostility towards other racial groups. ‘Pupils are being accused of things they haven’t thought or done. Multiculturalism attempts to manipulate children’s thoughts, beliefs and emotions, it amounts to indoctrination, and it doesn’t work. It is counter-productive.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315483/How-anti-racism-lesson-INCREASE-pupil-intolerance-They-cause-animosity-cultures.html

How anti-racism advertising can backfire 

People in two minds about their attitudes towards ethnic minority groups become more unfavourable when exposed to anti-racism advertising or arguments, according to new research sponsored by the ESRC.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-12/esr-haa120902.php

Agency withdraws casting call for CBC show that specified ‘any race except Caucasian’

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/29/cbc-no-caucasian/

Fraud

Diederik Stapel 

In 2011 Tilburg University suspended Stapel, pending further investigation, for fabricating and manipulating data for his research publications. This scientific misconduct took place over a number of years and affected at least 55 publications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diederik_Stapel
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html

Yoshitaka Fujii  

A Japanese researcher in anesthesiology, who in 2012 was found to have fabricated data in at least 172 scientific papers, setting what is believed to be a record for the number of papers by a single author requiring retractions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshitaka_Fujii

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/category/by-author/yoshitaka-fujii/

Joachim Boldt

A German anesthesiologist who used to be considered a leading researcher into colloids. He has been stripped of his professorship and is under criminal investigation for possible forgery of up to 90 research studies.

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/category/by-author/joachim-boldt-retractions/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Boldt

Ulrich Lichtenthaler 

Early in 2012, a group of 20 scientists became aware of deficits in Lichtenthaler's publications. This led the group to take a closer look at 50 other publications authored and co-authored by Lichtenthaler. The group's examination concluded with severely criticizing Lichtenthaler's work on the following points:

• lack of cross-referencing to publications of his own;
• his diverging interpretation of the same data set in different publications;
• severe statistical mistakes.

The controversy resulted in several of Lichtenthaler's articles being removed or retracted from the journals Strategic Organization, Research Policy, Strategic Management Journal,Journal of World Business, Organization Science, Journal of Business Venturingand Journal of Product Innovation Management. As a consequence of this controversy, both WHUand the University of Mannheim have created commissions tasked with investigating the suspected transgression of scientific standards by Lichtenthaler.

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/lichtenthaler-retraction-count-rises-to-11/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulrich_Lichtenthaler

Rick Heber

Known for his work as principal investigator of the Milwaukee Project and the subsequent controversies surrounding the project. ... Heber was a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison when he was indicted on charges stemming from the misuse of federal funds allocated to the project. He was subsequently convicted and served time in the federal prison in Bastrop, Texas. Previously a respected scholar in the field of mental retardation, his academic work on the Milwaukee Project has been called into serious question. It is now questionable whether the project ever actually existed as it had been described by Heber.

http://books.google.com/books?id=u4uzPlgcWpsC&pg=PA462&lpg=PA462&dq=%22rick+heber%22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Project

Matthew Poore 

a technician at Advanced Liquid Logic when he committed the misconduct, according to the report. While at North Carolina State University prior to his job at Advanced Liquid Logic, Poore published, by our count, 11 papers, one of which was cited more than 50 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/ori-finds-former-north-carolina-company-lab-tech-faked-data-in-nih-grant

Philosophy Of

Peter Singer 

Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."
Singer agrees and believes the notion of the sanctity of life ought to be discarded as outdated, unscientific and irrelevant to understanding problems in contemporary bioethics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer

Reeducation

Children made to kiss each other in front of their class as part of anti-bullying workshop 

Parents say their daughters were told to ask one another for a kiss and they say two girls were told to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2013/April/Girls-Told-to-Ask-For-Lesbian-Kiss-at-School/

False Accusations

Report: Man falsified police report in alleged anti-gay attack

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/26/report-man-falsified-police-report-in-alleged-anti-gay-attack/

Lying to police about being attacked in her home by masked men who carved anti-gay slurs into her skin 

A former University of Nebraska basketball star convicted of lying to police about being attacked in her home by masked men who carved anti-gay slurs into her skin was sentenced Thursday to a week in jail and two years' probation.According to police, Rogers, who is a lesbian, said three masked men broke into her home, assaulted and subdued her, and carved anti-gay slurs and into various parts of her body before trying to set fire to the home and leaving. A neighbor told police Rogers crawled from her home naked, bleeding and screaming for help.Prosecutors say her story quickly fell apart, and that she faked the attack because she thought it would inspire change in the treatment of gay people. They say Rogers purchased zip ties, a box cutter and white gloves shortly before the attack, and that the evidence didn't support what she said had happened.

http://www.ajc.com/news/ap/crime/nebraska-woman-sentenced-for-faking-hate-crime/nXQML/

War on Words

Washington state's governor signed into law on Monday the final piece of a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary, replacing terms such as "fisherman" and "freshman" with "fisher" and "first-year student."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/us-usa-gender-neutral-idUSBRE93M00V20130423

Artificial Intelligence

Is the Brain a Digital Computer? 

Syntax is not Intrinsic to Physics.
The Homunculus Fallacy is Endemic to Cognitivism.
Syntax Has No Causal Powers.
The Brain Does Not Do Information Processing.
John R. Searle - UC Berkeley

https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/lshapiro/web/Phil554_files/SEARLE-BDC.HTM

Ritual Murder

Strangling of widows by their brothers in Fiji 

One custom, however, seems to have been everywhere practised, namely the strangling of widows that they might be buried with their dead husbands. On the death of a great chief, many women were thus sacrificed, the victims being generally his watina lalai, or "little wives," i.e., women of inferior rank, though sometimes one or more of the watina mbau, who were all marama, or ladies of rank, would volunteer to be buried with him. The strangled women were called the thotho, or "carpeting of his grave."

http://www.omg-facts.com/History/Fiji-Used-To-Not-Have-Widows-Why/55303
http://www.masseiana.org/fison.htm

The sacrifices at the Temple at Uppsala 

At this point I shall say a few words about the religious beliefs of the Swedes. That nation has a magnificent temple, which is called Uppsala, located not far from the city of Sigtuna. In this temple, built entirely of gold, the people worship the statues of three gods. A general festival for all the provinces of Sweden is customarily held at Uppsala every nine years. Participation in this festival is required of everyone. Kings and their subjects, collectively and individually, send their gifts to Uppsala; - and – a thing more cruel than any punishment – those who have already adopted Christianity buy themselves off from these ceremonies. The sacrifice is as follows; of every kind of male creature, nine victims are offered. By the blood of these creatures it is the custom to appease the gods. Their bodies, moreover, are hanged in a grove which is adjacent to the temple. This grove is so sacred to the people that the separate trees in it are believed to be holy because of the death or putrefaction of the sacrificial victims. There even dogs and horses hang beside human beings. (A certain Christian told me that he had seen seventy-two of their bodies hanging up together.) The incantations, however, which are usually sung in the performance of a libation of this kind are numerous and disgraceful, and it is better not to speak of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamla_Uppsala

Distributions

Slashdot: 82% male
http://slashdot.org/poll/406/my-gender-is

Wikipedia: 87% male
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?src=tptw&_r=0

Lund Institute of Technology - 2004 class of Masters of Computer Science: 98% male

Feministic Discrimination

Women had an overall 2-to-1 advantage in being ranked first for the job in all fields studied. This preference for women was expressed equally by male and female faculty members, with the single exception of male economists, who were gender neutral in their preferences.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/13/opinions/williams-ceci-women-in-science/

The applications from white males were trashed, regardless of qualifications. 

And now it appears that Georgetown University may be trying to cover it up.
It appears that Arianna Pattek’s plan was even simpler. Just rid the school of males, particularly white ones, to begin with. And as we see this blow up into a full-fledged scandal and embarrassment to Georgetown University, it appears that a person or persons at the school are going to compound those problems with a cover-up.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/georgetown-university-and-men/georgetown-university-in-a-cover-up/

Gym membership discrimination 

they ban all men and boys for 442 hours every year – simply because they are male.
Adding insult to injury, they still charge them the same full-price membership fee as women, but refuse to offer the equivalent option of male-only sessions.
Not only is this an outrageous business model, but it’s also sexist. Especially given that council officials base it almost solely on women’s needs.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-governance-feminism/peter-lloyd-sues-over-sexist-policies/?utm_source=feedly

Post-Catastrophe Collaborative Workshop, an artists’ workshop designed for budding female artists “ages 16-96,” in Ojai, California

http://regenmag.com/news/lydia-lunch-curates-artists-workshop-for-women/

Poverty

An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.
Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.
Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

Adoption by children into higher classes increases IQ.

We present a full cross-fostering study dealing with IQ, and find that children adopted by high-SES parents score higher than children adopted by low-SES parents; children born to high-SES parents score higher than children born to low-SES parents; and that there is no evidence for an interaction between these two factors on children's IQ.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v340/n6234/abs/340552a0.html

Tree of Life

Charles Darwin's tree of life is 'wrong and misleading', claim scientists 

Dr Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, said: "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life. We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality."

"It's part of a revolutionary change in biology. Our standard model of evolution is under enormous pressure."

"The tree of life is being politely buried – we all know that. What's less accepted is our whole fundamental view of biology needs to change."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/4312355/Charles-Darwins-tree-of-life-is-wrong-and-misleading-claim-scientists.html

Predictive Power

Cosmologists make precise predictions about what will happen to the universe in 20 billion years' time. Biologists struggle to predict how a few bacteria in a dish might evolve over 20 hours.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13677-evolution-myths-evolution-is-not-predictive.html

Cloning

Sorry, you will never ride, see or pet a cloned dinosaur 

It’s been years since cloned animals first appeared, so why aren’t we able to reach back to the Cretaceous yet? Well, this isn’t just a question of improving our current cloning methods. We lack the fundamental materials to clone anything from 65 million years ago. Taking into account the influence of Hollywood, you could be forgiven for thinking that dinosaur blood is flowing like rivers in labs all over the world. The fact is, we don’t have dino DNA.
We also lack an intact dino nucleus to take up residence in a cell. You can’t grow a dinosaur with just a pile of DNA.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133802-sorry-you-will-never-ride-see-or-pet-a-cloned-dinosaur

DNA has a 521-year half-life 

Few researchers have given credence to claims that samples of dinosaur DNA have survived to the present day, but no one knew just how long it would take for genetic material to fall apart. Now, a study of fossils found in New Zealand is laying the matter to rest — and putting an end to hopes of cloning a Tyrannosaurus rex.
By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.
“This confirms the widely held suspicion that claims of DNA from dinosaurs and ancient insects trapped in amber are incorrect,” says Simon Ho, a computational evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. However, although 6.8 million years is nowhere near the age of a dinosaur bone — which would be at least 65 million years old — “We might be able to break the record for the oldest authentic DNA sequence, which currently stands at about half a million years,” says Ho.

http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555

Prevention

High-carb intake in infancy has lifelong effects, UB study finds

Results of animal study suggest that human babies may be less prone to obesity if given solid foods later
Consumption of foods high in carbohydrates immediately after birth programs individuals for lifelong increased weight gain and obesity, a University at Buffalo animal study has found, even if caloric intake is restricted in adulthood for a period of time.
Mulchand S. Patel - Professor of Biochemistry - University at Buffalo

http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2013/03/026.html

Darwin Abandoned

We aren’t using Darwin’s model anymore; he had no accurate notion of how inheritance worked, for instance — genes and alleles, the stuff of most modern theory, are not present anywhere in his works.“Darwinian” is also problematic. It does have a specific, technical meaning, but it’s often applied thoughtlessly to every process in evolution.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/19/oh-god-yes-yes/

Race Classification

United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, who was an Indian Sikh, settled in Oregon, could not be a naturalized citizen of the United States, because he was not a "white person" in the sense intended in the relevant 1790 statute governing naturalization. Although Thind argued that as an Indian he belonged to the Aryan and therefore the Caucasian race, the Court found that "the Aryan theory, as a racial basis, seems to be discredited by most, if not all, modern writers on the subject of ethnology," and noted that "the Caucasic division of the human family is 'in point of fact the most debatable field in the whole range of anthropological studies.'"

Associate Justice George Sutherland found that, while Thind, an Asian Indian, may claim to have "purity of Aryan blood" due to being "born in Village Taragarh Talawa,near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab" and having "high caste" status; he was not Caucasian in the "common understanding", so he could not be included in the "statutory category as white persons".^[1] 

The Court concluded that "The term 'Aryan' has to do with linguistic, and not necessarily with physical characteristics, and it would seem quite reasonable that mere resemblance in language, indicating a common linguistic root buried in remotely ancient soil, is altogether inadequate to prove common racial origin." 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind

Terrorism

United States of America

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

Norway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Money

To investigate the neural processes of decision-makings between attractive females and money, we recorded 18 male participants' brain event-related potentials (ERPs) when they performed a novel task of deciding between viewing an attractive female's fuzzy picture in clear and gaining a certain amount of money. Compared with choosing to gain money, choosing to view an attractive female evoked a larger late positive component (LPC) during the same time window, possibly because attractive females are more direct and evolutionarily earlier rewards for males than money amounts.

Zeng J School of Psychology, Southwest University

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23077499?dopt=Abstract

Facial Hair

Facial hair strongly influences people's judgments of men's socio-sexual attributes. However, the nature of these judgments is often contradictory. The levels of intermediate facial hair growth presented to raters and the stage of female raters' menstrual cycles might have influenced past findingsWomen judged faces with heavy stubble as most attractive and heavy beards, light stubble and clean-shaven faces as similarly less attractive.Our findings confirm that beardedness affects judgments of male socio-sexual attributes and suggest that an intermediate level of beardedness is most attractive while full-bearded men may be perceived as better fathers who could protect and invest in offspring.

Barnaby J. Dixson - The University of New South Wales

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(13)00022-6/abstract

Irrational Nonargumentation

A college professor has been arrested for a profane rant at pro-life students at the University of Buffalo. Curry, an adjunct instructor of media study, was lashing out at the University’s Students for Life organization. The group had erected a pro-life display featuring images that offended Curry.
“I can swear in public because that is profane,” she said referring to the display. “That image is swearing to me. That is profane to me.”

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/04/17/college-professor-arrested-for-profane-rant-at-pro-life-students/

Fallacies

Tu quoque: Latin for "you, too" or "you, also". Attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. Although the person being attacked might indeed be acting inconsistently or hypocritically, this does not invalidate their argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Bulverism: A logical fallacy in which, rather than proving that an argument in favor of an opinion is wrong, a person instead assumes that the opinion is wrong, and then goes on to explain why the other person held it.

• You claim that A is true.

• Because of B, you personally desire that A should be true.

• Therefore, A is false.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism

Appeal to motive: A pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis by calling into question the motives of its proposer. It can be considered as a special case of the ad hominem circumstantial argument. A common feature of appeals to motive is that only the possibility of a motive (however small) is shown, without showing the motive actually existed or, if the motive did exist, that the motive played a role in forming the argument and its conclusion. Indeed, it is often assumed that the mere possibility of motive is evidence enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive

Chronological snobbery: A term coined by friends C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, is a logical argument (and usually when thus termed, considered an outright fallacy) describing the erroneous argument that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior to that of the present.

It is argued that A.
A is an old argument, dating back to the times when people also believed B.
B is clearly false.
Therefore, A is false.

Informal example:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20130419-boy-scouts-please-few-with-proposal-to-partly-rescind-ban-on-gays.eceLast month, at a public forum in Washington, D.C., Bill Gates, the billionaire chairman of Microsoft — and a former Boy Scout — was asked by Mike Allen of Politico whether the BSA should rescind its ban on gay members and leaders.
“Absolutely,” Gates replied, without hesitation.
“Why?” Allen said.
“Because it’s 2013,” Gates responded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_snobbery

Large lists of fallacies can be found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
http://www.stanford.edu/~jonahw/PWR1/LogicalFallacies
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/#Fal
http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/

Psychiatry

In the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place. Psychiatry of the Brezhnev period was used as a tool to eliminate political opponents ("dissidents"), people who openly expressed their views that contradict officially declared dogmas. In case the person did not agree with the specific actions of people in leading positions and criticized them by using philosophic dogmas according to the writings by Karl Marx,Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, the term "philosophical intoxication" was widely used to diagnose mental disorders.In such cases, religious faith was determined to be a form of mental illness that needed to be cured.

"...there was no other logical rationale why one would oppose the best sociopolitical system in the world"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

Polygamy

We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/04/legalize_polygamy_marriage_equality_for_all.html

Sweden's Centre Party has ditched proposals allowing for polygamy and changes to inheritance rights from its new party programme following rifts in the party.

http://www.thelocal.se/46226/20130216/#.UW7OQpNYNS8

Anger

Are angry women more like men? 

"Why is it that men can be bastards and women must wear pearls and smile?"In two studies, researchers asked subjects to identify the sex of a series of faces. In the first study, androgynous faces with lowered eyebrows and tight lips (angry expressions) were more likely to be identified as male, and faces with smiles and raised eyebrows (expressions of happiness and fear) were often labeled feminine.This research is part of a larger set of studies showing that men's faces are perceived as angrier and women's faces as happier. 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/afri-aaw120409.php

Discrimination

Study: Blacks with white friends are 'less black'

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2546046#.UyyBciPiXis.twitter

Swedish study confirms foreign name CV bias

Researchers have found that job applicants with Swedish sounding names are 50 percent more likely to be called back for an interview than people with Arabic names, based on a randomly generated experiment with CV and cover letters.

http://www.thelocal.se/47164/20130405/#.UWvnopNYNS8

In the bluer countries, fewer people said they would not want neighbors of a different race; in red countries, more people did.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/

A revealing map of the world’s most and least ethnically diverse countries

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/

Censorship in the Soviet Union

• Soviet law prohibited the creation and distribution of pornography
• Censorship of historical photographs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union

Arguments

Cosmological Argument 

The cosmological argument is less a particular argument than an argument type. It uses a general pattern of argumentation (logos) that makes an inference from certain alleged facts about the world (cosmos) to the existence of a unique being, generally identified with or referred to as God. Among these initial facts are that certain beings or events in the world are causally dependent or contingent, that the universe (as the totality of contingent things) is contingent in that it could have been other than it is, that the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact possibly has an explanation, or that the universe came into being. From these facts philosophers infer deductively, inductively, or abductively by inference to the best explanation that a first or sustaining cause, a necessary being, an unmoved mover, or a personal being (God) exists that caused and/or sustains the universe. The cosmological argument is part of classical natural theology, whose goal has been to provide evidence for the claim that God exists.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

Argument from reason 

One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears... unless Reason is an absolute[,] all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based."
—C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

TWO DOZEN (OR SO) THEISTIC ARGUMENTS - Lecture Notes by Alvin Plantinga

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/two_dozen_or_so_theistic_arguments.pdf

Honesty

Women don’t always answer surveys honestly, but give answers they believe are expected of them. 

“Women are sensitive to social expectations for their sexual behavior and may be less than totally honest when asked about their behavior in some survey conditions,”In this study, the researchers asked men and women about their sexual attitudes and behaviors under several different testing conditions – including one in which the participants believed they were connected to a lie detector machine.Women’s answers were closer to men’s in some areas of sexual behavior when they thought lies could be detected. Men’s answers didn’t change as much as did women’s under different testing conditions.

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/sexsurv.htm

Standards Maleability

“Females are more strongly influenced by nonphysical factors than males…”

http://evolution.binghamton.edu/dswilson/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSW13.pdf

The More Women Want Sex The Higher Their Standards 

The more women want sex, the more they up their standards when choosing a short-term mate.Researchers found that this is in direct contrast to statistics for men, after they study revealed that men are more likely to lower their standards the more "sexually hyperactive" they become.

http://www.counselheal.com/articles/3898/20130214/more-women-want-sex-higher-standards-gender.htm

Ovulation Leads Women to Perceive Sexy Cads as Good Dads 

Women choose bad boys because their hormones make them, new research suggests. When ovulating a woman's hormones influence who she sees as good potential fathers, and they specifically pick sexier men over obviously more dependable men.
"Under the hormonal influence of ovulation, women delude themselves into thinking that the sexy bad boys will become devoted partners and better dads," Durante said. "When looking at the sexy cad through ovulation goggles, Mr. Wrong looked exactly like Mr. Right."
"When asked about what kind of father the sexy bad boy would make if he were to have children with another woman, women were quick to point out the bad boy's shortcomings," said Durante. "But when it came to their own child, ovulating women believed that the charismatic and adventurous cad would be a great father to their kids."
"While this psychological distortion could be setting some women up to choose partners who are better suited to be short-term mates, missing a mating opportunity with a sexy cad might be too costly for some women to pass up," said Durante. "After all, you never know if he could be the 'one.'"

http://www.livescience.com/20294-women-choose-bad-boys.html
http://business.utsa.edu/faculty/kdurante/files/OvulationPaternalInvestment.pdf

Housework

Couples who share the housework are more likely to divorce

Divorce rates are far higher among “modern” couples who share the housework than in those where the woman does the lion’s share of the chores.
The report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.
“One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.
The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/9572187/Couples-who-share-the-housework-are-more-likely-to-divorce-study-finds.html

The more housework married men do, the less sex they have.

Husbands who spend more time doing traditionally female chores -- such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping -- reported having less sex than those who do more masculine tasks."Our findings suggest the importance of socialized gender roles for sexual frequency in heterosexual marriage," said lead author Sabino Kornrich, of the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid."Couples in which men participate more in housework typically done by women report having sex less frequently. Similarly, couples in which men participate more in traditionally masculine tasks -- such as yard work, paying bills, and auto maintenance -- report higher sexual frequency."

http://www.france24.com/en/20130130-more-housework-less-sex-married-men-study

Couples with more traditional housework arrangements report higher sexual frequency.
Changes in the nature of marriage have spurred a debate about the consequences of shifts to more egalitarian relationships, and media interest in the debate has crystallized around claims that men who participate in housework get more sex. However, little systematic or representative research supports the claim that women, in essence, exchange sex for men’s participation in housework.
Results show that both husbands and wives in couples with more traditional housework arrangements report higher sexual frequency, suggesting the importance of gender display rather than marital exchange for sex between heterosexual married partners.
Sabino Kornrich - Juan March Institute - University of Washington

http://asr.sagepub.com/content/78/1/26

Token resistance to sex

39.3% of the women had engaged in token resistance at least once. 
We investigated whether women ever engage in token resistance to sex—saying no but meaning yes—and, if they do, what their reasons are for doing so.We found that 39.3% of the women had engaged in token resistance at least once. Their reasons fell into three categories: practical, inhibition-related, and manipulative reasons.It could, however, have negative consequences, including discouraging honest communication, perpetuating restrictive gender stereotypes, and—if men learn to disregard women's refusals—increasing the incidence of rape.
Muehlenhard, Charlene L - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/54/5/872/

Foundational Documents

National Socialist Program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#_=_

The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle 

a) Universal suffrage polled on a regional basis, with proportional representation and voting and electoral office eligibility for women.
d) The convocation of a National Assembly for a three-years duration, for which its primary responsibility will be to form a constitution of the State.
a) The quick enactment of a law of the State that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers.
b) A minimum wage.
c) The participation of workers’ representatives in the functions of industry commissions.
d) To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants.
e) The rapid and complete systemization of the railways and of all the transport industries.
f) A necessary modification of the insurance laws to invalidate the minimum retirement age; we propose to lower it from 65 to 55 years of age.
b) The nationalization of all the arms and explosives factories.
a) A strong progressive tax on capital that will truly expropriate a portion of all wealth.
b) The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor.
c) The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.

http://www.wnd.com/2004/06/25291/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_manifesto

Those Damned Nazis by Joseph Goebbels 

We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.....
The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism’s nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degradesocialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence. An understanding of both these facts leads us to a new sense of socialism, which sees its nature as nationalistic, state-building, liberating and constructive. ......
We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers’ state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist national state.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm

Speed of Evolution

Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island
"Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows.
In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html

Naturality

It's natural to believe in God: Oxford study 

Human beings have natural tendencies to believe in God and life after death, according to a three-year international research project directed by two academics at the University of Oxford. 

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/its-natural-to-believe-in-god-oxford-study/152066-19.html

"Separate bodies of research suggest that young children have a broad tendency to reason about natural phenomena in terms of purpose and an orientation toward intention-based accounts of the origins of natural entities."

http://www.scipie.net/docs/2007/Kelemen_PS_2004.pdf

Being nice

 The Joint Effects of Sex and Agreeableness on Income

"Sex and agreeableness were hypothesized to affect income, such that women and agreeable
individuals were hypothesized to earn less than men and less agreeable individuals"
"Because agreeable men disconfirm (and disagreeable men confirm) conventional gender roles,
agreeableness was expected to be more negatively related to income for men (i.e., the pay gap
between agreeable men and agreeable women would be smaller than the gap between
disagreeable men and disagreeable women)"

Timothy A. Judge - University of Notre Dame

http://www3.nd.edu/~cba/Nice--JPSPInPress.pdf

Assassination

Failed Assassination in Russia 

"The man was about to get out, but walked past the young man suddenly rushed to his jeep, raised his bag and fired a pistol hidden in it."
"Businessman survived the assassination attempt because of misfiring hitman"

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Flifenews.ru%2Fnews%2F112632&act=url

Russia Assassinates 2 CIA-Linked Terrorists Tied To Boston Bombings

http://beforeitsnews.com/scandals/2013/04/russia-hit-squad-assassinates-2-cia-assets-linked-to-boston-bombers-2431194.html

Empathy

Gender differences in brain networks supporting empathy 

"Females frequently score higher on standard tests of empathy, social sensitivity, and emotion recognition than do males."
"The data suggest that females recruit areas containing mirror neurons to a higher degree than males during both SELF- and OTHER-related processing in empathic face-to-face interactions. This may underlie facilitated emotional “contagion” in females."
"The data suggest that females and males rely on different strategies when assessing their own emotions in response to other people."
Martin Schulte-Rüther, Institute of Neuroscience and Biophysics, Jülich, Germany

http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/annececile.boulay/UE%20biblio/pdf/7.5.Schulte-Ruther.NeuroImage08.pdf

Reluctance

"Appearance-based discrimination" on the same legal basis as race and sexual discrimination."" 

A report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image and the Central YMCA recommended MPs should investigate putting "appearance-based discrimination" on the same legal basis as race and sexual discrimination."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9297496/Calling-someone-fatty-could-become-a-hate-crime.html